I am using Nisus Writer Pro primarily for RTF documents on my mac. I am attending a class that drops five RTF document templates each week. I open these, fill them in, and then post them back to the instructor.

My complaint is that every time I open one of these RTF documents for the first time, I have to then widen the window so the page can auto-size larger for me to work with is. Most editing apps I use (Scrivener, Ulysses, Pages, Word, etc.) remember the last windows size and location you used and use that as a default until changed. I have looked through settings and don't see what to change.

Nisus does not have any "default width" for files that already exist. It makes a point of restoring windows to whatever size you left them last time. Template files will create new files that have the same position and size as the template file when it was saved. That is how Nisus gets its "default size" for new files; for its new files it uses the "Nisus New File". But this won't apply to files that come from another source.
One could write a macro to resize and position a file window, but this macro would have to be invoked once the file is open. One could write a macro that opens a file and then positions it, but this would have to be invoked from within Nisus, and it would only apply for the specific file, or you would have to choose the file within the macro. Either way this would not work for files that you double click, or drag onto the Nisus icon.

It may be possible to do something with AppleScript, but this would probably be in the form of an applet where you drop the file on the applet (and it opens the file in Nisus with the right position and size).

At the bottom of the View > Zoom menu there are commands you might find useful. If all you want is to abolish the horizontal scroll bars, use the Show Page Width command. Assign it a Keyboard Shortcut to make life that little bit easier.

My assumption is that most apps remember their window locations and size upon close, and Nisus doesn't; that's why it feels strange to me and doesn't act like my other apps. If the developer reads this it might be something to consider for the future.

elrjax wrote:My complaint is that every time I open one of these RTF documents for the first time, I have to then widen the window so the page can auto-size larger for me to work with is.

Suggestion no. 1:

If your Nisus New File was saved in Page View, then a double-click on the window’s title bar may be all you need to do.

It will [1] make the wide range just large enough to see the Page Guides and [2] will also switch to full length.
This is actually the same as option-clicking the green dot in the upper left corner when you are in Page View.
For this to work, the option “Double-click a window’s title bar to zoom” in System Preferences > Dock must be enabled.

By the way, this ONLY works in Page View. In Draft View a double-click on a window’s title bar works differently, more like a single click on the green dot, although not exactly identical though.

This feature seems to be somehow related to the zoom level and the width. I used to have a Nisus New File which was zoomed to 171%. A Double-click on the window’s title bar didn’t work as described above, but when zoomed to 170% it worked perfectly. Now, two days later, my Nisus New File is 180% and I can’t reproduce the earlier behavior. Now it always works. You may therefore have to experiment with this to find the right size.

Suggestion no. 2:

1. Open one of the original RTF documents you received from your instructor, and widen the window until it fits your requirements.
2. Choose “New” from the File menu. A new blank document will appear on the screen.
3. Drag until it completely covers the first RTF document.
4. Now save the blank document as Nisus New File.

Assuming the Nisus New File is in your Nisus Documents folder, you can use this macro to quickly save the file. Replace “ME” with the name of your Home folder.

# Saves the file as Nisus New File
$whatToDo = Prompt 'Do you want to save this file as a Nisus New File?', '', 'Yes', 'No'
If $whatToDo == 'No'
Exit
else
Save As ''/Users/ME/Documents/Nisus Documents/Templates/Nisus New File.dot''
end
Close

As has already been mentioned, it’s the Nisus New File that determines how a file is first displayed, if it was created by an other application.